


the notion of a nation

by theatrythms



Series: what is a legacy [2]
Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Type-0
Genre: Birthdays, Established Relationship, F/M, Machina POV, Post Game, Post War, Post War rebuilding, Remembrance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6388861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'We fought and we killed, for the notion of a nation we know get to build'<br/>Or;<br/>Machina tries to single-handedly write the new world's population, and Rem wants to do whatever it takes.<br/>Part 2/6</p>
            </blockquote>





	the notion of a nation

**Author's Note:**

> damn emily back at it again with the hamilton inspired fanfictions. And instead of being zero4ham its been upgraded to final4ham after i cried for twenty+ minutes at a gifset i saw (it was a zack one, and ive been in love with that man for the past 8 years and im excited to see what the next 800 years of loving him will bring)  
> basically my favourite aspect of geography is how countries rebuild themselves after war and honestly machina was at the FRONT of that shit and is handwriting the cenus. it is law.  
> next fic will be an ines/qun/mi bc WHO DOESNT LIKE LESBIANS

We fought and we killed, for the notion of a nation we know get to build

-

There’s so much to do. There’s population levels at need revising and city-by-city death counts and refugees misplaced and rursus remains scatted across Orience. There’s the sick, the injured, the dying to be cared for; there’s ex-Commander Enra growing agitated in his wheelchair and hobbling around the camps on cruches. There’s devote Concordian crystal worshippers who won’t leave their homeland. There’s parents made widowers and widows who can’t support their children.

There’s Orience needing to be healed.

The nightmare before them is their land of Orience, and its all his fault.

Machina waves his wrist, calling the next family in the line forward. He’s in an old Dominion tent, sitting under its off-red canaopy with a table. He’s been with World Regenisis Organisation, the group set up by any survivors from all four crystal states, since the beginning of the rebuild, so around seven months. Machina hates to boast, but pretty much the entirity of the organisation looks to him like a leader. Rem named them though, so she stands as his second. There’s four children in the family, all dark haired, all draped in the same thick, woolen blankets handed out at the gates of McTige for any family wanting to come in. The woman smiles, and hoists the baby higher on her hip.

“Name?” Machina asks for what feels like the hundreth time that day.

“Lark. Melissa Lark. And these are my children, Able, Bridgette, Nori and Micheal.” She says. She has thick dark hair tied back in a briad, and has a slight Northan Accent; a Rubrum dialect mixed with a faint Lorican twinge.

“I’m Micheal!” The baby cries, reaching one hand out to Machina.

“Hi Micheal,” Machina greets, smiling at him. He’s very small, with big brown eyes like all his siblings. But his mother has clear blue eyes, ringed with exhaustion.

“Ages?” Machina asks, writing down the names on the Census form. Its a fairly simple form- designed by Aki back in late January when the WRO decided that taking a census of the remaining population was a priority- nothing too fancy, very general. Like names, ages, birthdates and place of birth, then anything else they’d like to add.

“I’m 34, Able is 11, Bridgette is 9, Nori is 5 and Micheal is 2.” Melissa explains, patting each child on the head as she recites. The children look like they’ve been through hell; hungry eyes, pale lips, dirty hair. Melissa has been trying, like all mothers and fathers over Orience, to keep her family alive, and Machina admires her for that.

“And where did you live before?”

“Northeastern Rubrum in Keziah, but... when the,” She cuts herself off when her voice thickens, wanting not to cry in front of the children.

“I understand, you don’t have to explain.” Machina says sympathetically. He takes the form from his clipboard and hands it to Melissa with a pen “Fill out whatever I missed and we’ll find a place for your family.”

He won’t just try, he’ll do. Machina finds that’s his new mantra.

Melissa hesitates before taking the form issued to her family. There’s tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them shed “Thank you Mr Kunagiri, thank you.”

“No thanks nessacery Mrs Lark, just trying to help in what way I can.” He smiles as the family move on to one of the benches around the camp, built by Lorican survivors out of the the rubble and spare fuirniture of McTige. Less than a year ago, Machina had seen the city reduced to the same state. The benches were hasitily put together, as a way to compenstate for the lack of other facilities.

There were camps like this set up in other cities across Orience, set up for refugees travelling from all over the land to get help, food and proection, but there’s a surge in Rubrum since that was where the repairations began, and mainly because it’s where the WRO works from, collecting the offical census of the new world, rehoming people and quelling violence breaking out in the former states. If there’s bloodshed, Machina Kunagiri is always the first to know. He sighs, thinking of all the work left to do.

“Need any help?” Rem says, standing behind him. Her hands rest on his shoulders, and for a split second, he relaxes into her touch, letting his head rest against her stomach. He can smell faint lemon from her, wafting from her uniform and into the air around them. He exhales with her, slow and calming, but people are waiting and could get impatient. People from all corners of Orience? All together? Not fighting for land or crystals or out of revenge? There’s still bad blood between the people of the nations. Loricans looking for Militesi blood, Concordians scorning Rubrum citizens, Militesi ex-soldiers picking fights with anyone who dares to even look them in the eye. Its choas, trying to control it all, and explain to each angry person that the only people they could blame for the war were the politicions and their puppet governments.

“I have to get back to work.” Machina mutters to her. Then he opens his eyes, and her angelic face is all he sees. She smiles down at him, honest and true, unlike the anxious, uneasy ones she used to exchange with hm during the war.

“Well, I’ll help you then.”

Machina blinks when she leaves. Next thing, she’s dragging a chair from back inside the tent to the table he’s at. She sits next to him, takes half a pile of census documents, and calls the next family towards her.

She’s remarkable, really.

“Hi, I’m Rem, nice to meet you.” She says to the three people. There’s a little girl at the front, clutching a doll to her chest “What’s your name?”

“Hana,” The girl says quietly.

“Hana? That’s a beautiful name!” A blush dusts the girl’s cheeks at Rem’s words. Rem goes on to make easy conversation with her, like asking the name of her doll and her age. Her parents behind her look young, the father with a sling for his arm and a patch over his eye. The mother has her two hands guarded over her stomach, resting on her bump. Machina can see that the father is wearing a Militesi infantry uniform, all silver and green and gold dirtied with brown.

“And your names?”

“Kimiko and John Davis,” The father says.

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from Iscah but John is from a small Militesi village near the boarder.” Kimiko explains, and Rem nods.

And while she writes down their information, Machina can’t help but gape. She’s so much more attached to the people she interviews than he could ever be. She genuinly treats ecery refugee family like an individual case, not as an epidemic, like how the consortium of old viewed fleeing citizens from the outer cities.She worked wonderfully with people, and Machina couldn’t help but bask in her lovely happiness.

“So you would like to go back to Milites for settlement, but you don’t mind where you’re placed?” Rem clarifies, mainly for herself. She scriblles it down on the side of the form.

“Well, really anywhere there’s a school for Hana really.” John says, and presses a kiss to his daughter’s head, making Machina smile.

Rem smiles fondly too, and looks at them “Well, please take this form and fill out whatever we missed. I promise to do my best.”

“What do we say Hana?” Kimiko says before they leave.

“Thank you Rem!” The little girl practically yells, and waves goodbye as her and her family go find a place to sit down.

They go back to work, calling family after family towards them. They started in the early morning, when the sun was still buried asleep in the trees of central Rubrum. He’d been sitting there since the volenteers began to dish out a feast of all cuisine; Rubrum bread, Militesi corn, Concordian bean soup and Lorican salad. Machina would be lying if he said he didn’t go back to get seconds ofthe soup. There’s one woman in the WRO that always makes sure everyone’s fed. He doesn’t know her real name, but she hits anyone who tries to call her anything other than ‘Ma’. She’s a Lorican survivor, short and squat with big teeth and a wide smile. But she also has a bad habit of grabbing random people, refugees and WRO workers alike, and pulling them into the dragon-powered kitchens to help cook for the hundreds flocking to them.

“How?” Is all Machina can say when the line dies down “You did that so well, and managed to avoid a fight when you told that one guy you might not be able to get him a place in one of the Concordian cities by the end of the month.”

Rem shrugs, hair falling out of her braid. She’s wearing the grey jumpsuit issued to all WRO volenteers. But she makes it look nice, with the red scarf tied around her neck and the pheonix broach on her breast. He’s wearing the same. But to all the people that visit, they just see them in their Rubrum colours, but they’re actually wearing their Class Zero capes, as homage to their friends.

Machina leans in and kisses her cheek lightly, but long enough for his lips to linger there

“Let’s go for a walk,” she breaths “Enra and Aki can handle it.”

He chuckles lightly at her matchmaking, but nods.

“Only for five minutes.”

Rem giggles against his cheek.

-

The rubble of McTige lets the late May sun shine on their faces. McTige is the nearest village closest to the capital, yet in all Machina’s wisdom, it’s the last place they go when collecting the Orience-wide census. Next was Eibon, then onto to Concordia. They started in Militesi, through Azurr and Cetme, then through the Ruins of Lorica. They started in Militesi for a reason, where the brunt of the war and fighting and taken place during the end. Big Bridge was essentiall decimated by Alexander, Rursus’ destroyed Ingram and Cetme was the only city left in the nation that could accutally house and facillitate those hurt.

When the crystals left, the big city was left in the dark winter, with no heat or electricity. But Militesi isn’t the only nation left struggling without its cyrstal. His magitek weapons no longer called to his hands on whim, but the steel bolt rapiers were a fine replacement, made for him by a Lorican survivor who wanted to help when they began to exavate the Ultima Bomb crater. They started looking for survivors living in the tunnels beneath the crust of the world. The Black Tortoise gave protection, and Machina believed in the chance that it hadn’t left its people to ruin. The tunnels ran almost down into the mantal, warm due to how close it was to the core, and the truth was that not even half of the Lorican race was killed during the Ultima bomb, the rest of the population hidden in the earth. The discovery had brought a lot of hope for Orience, that not even World Destroying weapons of mass destruction could stop a nation thriving.

But anyway, McTige is a lovely town, but it brings back too many memories of his first ever mission in Class Zero. He can remember putting on the red cape for the first time, feeling like Lord Zhuuyu himself. Being in McTige for the past few days filled him with remnants of memories. It’s an odd, melancoly feeling, being able to remember the missions he went on with his classmates. In Class Second, he’d return from missions and feel like he hadn’t even gone on them in the first place. But wandering the streets of McTige brought back all those awkward, first-mission-new-class nerves, light chatter with a new class that in the next year, would die for their world.

He remembers Jack’s unbound praise, Sice’s biting comments everytime he made a good shot, Cinque almost hitting him with her mace, and Ace’s shock when Machina healed him for the first time when the classleader was caught in a skirmish with 3 MAs and-

Stop.

Machina can’t think about that anymore.

“Its been awhile since I was last here, hasn’t it?” Rem says as they walk down the streets. The hanging baskets are dangling off discarded balconies, but the flowers planted are blooming into yellows and pinks. Some cobble stones are disloged in the path, but for the most part, its relativly safe. “King’s birthday was coming up and Deuce wanted to get him something nice. He was turning 18.”

Rem looks up at him sweetly. She pokes him in the chest, right where his red cape is draped over his grey jumpsuit.

He rolls his eyes, because yes, its his birthday, but no, its not a big deal.

Soldiers age, but all that mattered in the end was their skill.

“C’mon Machina, you act like this isn’t important, so you do.” She says with mock annoyance. Or real, but he couldn’t tell. She stands in front of him, hands on her hips, staring up at him from her short height. Rem pouts at him, stopping his path.

“We’re hardly in the right time to celebrate something like a birthday Rem, its just not ideal.” Machina reasons, putting his hands on her shoulders so he could move her out of his way. They were just taking a walk through the town, and the longer he spent away from the camp meant that work was piling up.

Rem stays firm in her stance. “Its never the wrong time to celebrate a birthday. If Deuce can take three minutes of her time that she should use for studying or training or fighting to play a song for someone she loves, then I can do just the same so I can.

“When we got back from Ingram, I collapsed because of my illness. There was nothing they could do, so they left me in Doctor Al-Rashia’s office so they could come back to get me. I could still hear them, and how upset and paniced they were for the state of the world. But Deuce...” Rem looks up at him again, a soft, sad smile covering her features. She traces the pheonix on her broach, the one that pinned her red cape together like a scarf. Machina knew he recognised it from somewhere, but at the mention of the youngest member of Class Zero, he realises that the broach Rem wears with her cape was the same one that belonged to the young flute player.

“Deuce played King a song on her flute, even when the world was falling apart around her, she made sure they celebrated her brother’s birthday, so she did.

“It would be pointless, to ignore what we can celebrate. And I’m not trying to guilt you Machina, I swear, I just,” she smiles, trying to add up the words to say “I want to celebrate this with you, as we work toward peace together.”

His breath stops at the hopful look in her eyes. She’s right, he thinks to himself, about recognising their efforts and taking breaks, and just, the very belief that the future was a bright as they wanted it to be. Orience will fall into a peaceful state, under unity and through working together to achive goals. It will take time, either months or years or decades, but Machina swears to himself, on the life of the girl he loves standing in front of him, and the lives of his classmates who choose their fate so that he may walk on, and become the light that guides the way.

“Machina,” Rem interrupts his thoughts, now standing a bit away from him. Sunlight streams through her hair and the light brown wisps that frame her head, creating a halo around her head. In that moment, Machina thinks it’s the most beautiful he’s ever seen her.

“Happy birthday.”

-

 

**Author's Note:**

> ps the headcanon that deuce plays happy birthday on the flute comes from my other fic 'Apollo' i have no clue how to post links in this thing im an old man  
> THANK YOU FOR READING <3 <3 <3


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